Weekly Content 5+ With A Fist Pump!!

            This week I had a number of things I had planned to talk about and something else has yet, again, sidetracked me.  But sometimes, you’ve gotta share!   Today I was home with my youngest who wasn’t feeling well.  I tend to overuse Facebook on days like this, and that’s where I saw this:

I'm working on Science daily 5. I am asking for input on the rotation. Do you allow each group in to each station daily? Please help!

That totally got my interest.  I had to find out more! I had to get my oldest going and get him to school!  That’s a half-hour away and that means think time-and think I did! 

            Before I left the house, I was able to discover what the Science Weekly 5 was.  I went to The Science Penguin and took a quick glance:

http://www.thesciencepenguin.com/p/what-is-science-weekly-five.html

From that quick glance, I then found this link to her freebie that explains more.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Science-Weekly-Five-Start-Up-Kit-229542

And, from there, my brain started ticking away.  I know enough about the Daily 5 to be able to make some serious reading/content area connections.  The Daily 5, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a reading system that allows you to hit all areas of reading work every day.  I have done a modified version in the past and just haven’t gotten there since I have taught 4^th grade.  I find that I am really teaching and they are busy enough with the literature we are doing, that I just can't get to it.  It is an awesome program, so if you want to learn more, I highly suggest getting the book and reading it through. 

As I was driving, I began to make some serious decisions.  What did I want it to look like?   Who would be doing what?  What would I be doing?  How could I make this content area worthy and hit everything I need to hit?  How will I know what the kids are doing and cover content?  How would I give a test?  And, then, BAM-just like that-I also realized how this would help when I’d be working with my RTI groups!  Oh, how great this day is!  Success!!  Without further ado, here it is.

1. There would be 6 rotations instead of 5.  The 6^th rotation is the +.  It is only for the kids that are not participating in RTI.  They are doing the extra assignment while I am working with the small group kids.  They can work on any of the Weekly 5+ during this time.

            2.  The areas would be Social Studies comprehension, Partner Reading/Listen to Reading Science Text with comprehension, Teacher Time, Team Work Time (this will be project based), Vocabulary, and + Time.  

      3.  Yes, it covers both areas.  Let me restate that -YES! (with a fist pump) That means I’ll get through more curriculum at a faster paces than I currently am.

            4.  YES! (Fist pump) I can still do projects and experiments because now it will be interwoven with the rest of the items and I will meet with kids in small groups to help guide their understanding when we do this!

     5.  YES!  (Fist pump) I can give tests.  This will be the teacher rotation for the week all on one day!  So, technically, they are still working on a rotation, just all at once.  And when they finish, they are able to go right back to work on one of the things that they have for the week-steady flow of work! 

     6.  YES!  (Double fist pump) I’m covering READING SKILLS this way! 

            7.  YES!!  (Triple fist pump)  I get multiple grades for each subject, each week now!  Oh, I could just sing at this point!  Hallelujah! 

Oh, dear Fourth Grade Friend, you have no idea how you blessed me today while I drove my child to school.  So what did I do when I got home????

            I wrote it up!  Here’s a quick peek at what I’ve got going!   This is the poster that I will print out and laminate for my room. It will be the overall guide for the kids for the week.

These are the plans for week one.  That’s right-next week!  I'm totally excited!  Look at that-Science AND Social Studies!  That means grades folks, and you know that’s what we are always looking for!!! 

Each week, I'll just take this off the poster and add the next plan of action!  How great is that! 

For those of you from Florida, the reading comprehension is the sheets from Florida Then and Now.  I got so excited about this, I charted out the comprehension for the rest of the year-yes, I did!  That’s how you spend a day with a sick kid who’s watching TV all day! (Oh, I did 2 loads of dishes, graded 4 sets of papers, did 4 loads of laundry-no folding till after this, and made 2 batches of Pillsbury biscuits, 2 batches of corn bread, and 1 loaf of beer bread for my youngest school’s luncheon tomorrow.  Please don’t ask me how-I’m still trying to figure out how I was that efficient today!)

There are more thoughts that I have.  I know there will be some work throughs.  I haven’t even read through The Science Penguins suggestions yet.  I know they will help.  I’m just, plain, fist pumping excited about this!  I’m hoping you might like this too!  It is a totally different way to think about the content areas!  Thanks again Fourth Grade Friend!!!

Off Topic

Today I want to write about something unexpected, something that I think all teachers go through from time to time that we just don’t see coming.  This weekend, I held a baby.  A beautiful, almost year old, baby.  She was beautiful and she was sweet.  She laughed and ate bacon from my hand as her brother and sisters worked on a craft project.  I even gave her a nick name.  And then I found out. I found out her father was a former student.  That is not a typical story, but the next part is.  Her father is in trouble.  He isn’t home and won’t be, for a while. 

With the onset of modern technology, we have the ability to be “around” our former students.  We get to watch them grow up and have real lives.  Before I go on, I do want to clarify.  I am not “friends” on Facebook with any former students who are not over 18.  Once they are adults, I will follow them.  This is, after all, part of being an adult.  I am friends with one of my former teachers, the one who probably impacted me the most in my life.  I can never thank her enough for simply doing her job.  It was that very passion that more than likely lead to mine.  And she is but one of the 6+ elementary teachers that spoke into my career and helps still, to this day, guide what I do.  Being friends with these now adult former students is an opportunity to do the same thing.  I write them “Happy Birthdays”, “Keep studying”, “Congratulations”, and more recently, “Oh, should I spoil all this fun and tell you that you only fill in a little box on "real" lesson plans!”  I have also written, “Your baby is beautiful.”  And that where this post is leading me.

With all those wonderful things that students do, I think seeing some of them become parents is amazing.  It is, after all, the most amazing thing a person can do.  And this little baby, she is a part of me.  I know that sounds “weird”, but how many times do we meet former students and we go right back to that moment, right back to knowing that kid and loving that kid, even though they are adults.  We hear about their lives and take pleasure in knowing what they are doing.  Yet, presented before me is a struggle in life.  I think we forget that former students struggle. But, it won’t change my feelings the day I do get to see her dad, because he’s coming home.  I will hug him and tell him the same things that I would tell one of those students who’s lives seem to be together, “Your daughter is beautiful.”, “Her mother loves you and wants what’s best, “  and “I don’t care what you have done, I care about you!”   So, I think that’s the thing that I’m taking away from this opportunity.  Strugglers are still ours, they still matter to us.  And, more importantly, we might be the only ones in their childhood life that do.  When you see that adult students, just ask yourself, what really matters.  Right now, to me, that’s simply to love that child where they’re  at, even when it is not the pretty picture we hope it to be. 

It's All About the Costume!

      Halloween, fun and candy galore!  It is also a time killer-waiting for the party, waiting, in my case, for the parade that my school holds.  What’s a teacher to do?  Especially when you have, based on your own opinion, a boring costume.  As a team, we went with simple-dice.  White shirts, black dots-done.  I put mine on with double sided tape for easy removal.  On my way to work, I decided that I would, simply, change my white shirt.  I would use the black dots in a different way-I would turn myself into a ghost.  That got my brain thinking, and here’s where it lead.  With all that down time, my boring white shirt, and kids who couldn’t concentrate long enough to do anything “standard” worthy, I decided to let them create the rest of my costumes for the day!  Out came the construction paper and scissors.  But, more importantly, their creativity.  Below is the sequence of my costumes for the day!

Here's the dice!  Kids also came up with dominos.  

This was my favorite.  The cat, including the stripes!

I called him the horned man!

This was Mike Wazowski's cousin, Bubba!

This is the girly ghost costume!

This is a monster made of a variety of different animals, from sea turtle to dragon!

The ghost duck!

And, the grand finale.......

A No Homework Pass Coupon!  How could I give them homework with a costume like this!

     I’m definitely going to work my costumes around this idea from now on.  It solved so many problems with the day and let the kids have fun and pride in something they created.  Other kids spent the rest of the day wearing the costumes that the kids made for me and one ended up on the wall, as a permanent reminder of the opportunity to step out and create something just, plain fun!

Where Text Structure Can Lead You

            In our quest to discover text structure evidence, I felt I was loosing myself, and the kids, time and effort in other reading tasks.  Was I spending too much time on it, was it that important, what was this really about?  Then I opened my eyes!  I saw what I was really teaching them!  So, here it is!

    1.    Key details and support:  When you are looking for evidence for text structures, you are pulling out key details and support for whatever the topic is, in either type of reading.  In informational text, we were defining and explaining the topic through key details.  In fiction, we were pulling out key details and support for each of the characters we were investigating! 

    2.  Main idea:  If you are pulling key details and support, this leads to the most natural learning of main idea.  You have to know what you are reading about to pull evidence and support!  

    3.  Summary!:  Yes, summary!  As we were circling and highlighting and finding and writing, it jumped out!  We were gathering information for a summary!  We could use that information, in order, to write a summary-for either type of text feature!  It was right there, and I couldn’t see it at first!

4.  Character traits:  This comes naturally in the descriptive pieces Roald Dahl writes.  Students were gathering traits about them that they could use to prove that they really understood who the character was and how their behavior impacts the text! 

Awesome!  I was so surprised!  I had it planned that we would work on summary, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about teaching it, how I would target the work for success, and it was staring at me!   And it all came together through grading a homework assignment.

            For homework, the kids have been reading nonfiction texts.  They need lots of practice with the basic and these are working.  One of the ones that they read the week I was sorting through all this thinking was Spider Silk.  As suddenly as the skills popped out to me, so did the parts of a spider-as a graphic organizer!  Spider Silk was a descriptive text that they could pull evidence from and practice all the skills above.  And, I was feeling bad about not doing a single, fun holiday activity.  So, I came up with a craftivity! Here’s what we did.

            First, I cut off the bottom of the assignment.  I didn’t want the distracted by the questions they got right or wrong.  I passed it back out for them to read and highlight.  Here’s a student using their reading journal as a guide-amazing!!

Next, they chose the 8 most important facts and wrote them on black strips of paper.  These strips could be arranged in an order that allowed them to group ideas together. 

Then they went to work on writing a summary.  I had gone through what a summary is and made a chart.  This is a copy of a chart I found on Pintrest. 

 (Sorry of the bad pic-no phone today!)

Once I approved their summary, they wrote it on the body of the spider.  Then they glued the 8 legs in the order that they used them in their summary.  The final touch was to add eyes to a head and write the main idea on the head! 

(Here's I built to show the kids)

I feel like this is what text structure really can do for kids!  It can answer so many questions and thoughts and wonders.  It is not just about what is on the page and why. It is about all this, and more.  We have two more to look closely at-compare and contrast and cause and effect!  I have questions now about how these will impact real learning, what I can do with them, and the effect it will have on the kids, and I am truly excited to find out.  And, there may be a turkey craftivity in my future!

Descriptive Text Structure: Way More than I Ever Expected to Discover!

            In an earlier post, I explained how I have been focusing on text structure.  We have been hard at work looking at descriptive text structure.  We followed a similar fashion of learning about sequential text structure.  We glued in our two guiding pages into our reading journal.  Why two you ask?  In Florida, we can never do what the rest of the world does-we have to make our own standards and rules.  The rest of the educational world knows this text structure as descriptive, but for the FCAT they need to know it as define and explain.  This actually works out ok, because there is some foundational learning by using that terminology.  Anyways, here’s how we rolled out learning about the descriptive text structure.

First, we examined our Science books.  Our first, in the book, chapter starts out with this very text structure.  We used the graphic organizer to break down the information found in the text.  This was relatively easy.  It was descriptive AND IN ORDER!  We were able to look at how important each term was to the MAIN IDEA of the page.  What we took away was that this descriptive/define and explain model helped us to understand what groups of plants are.

Next, we hit up our mentor text, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  In our reading journals, we built a model of the graphic organizer.  Students charted one of the characters, Veruca Salt, from one of the chapters.  It was rather obvious that this was a descriptive chapter-Roald Dahl does an excellent job at switching back and forth between the two at the beginning of the text.  The students gathered all the evidence they could to support the definition of descriptive texts.  Here are a couple of samples of what they came up with. 

From this, we were able to determine, yet again, that it was IN ORDER!  There is a fine line between these two text structures.  They both organize themselves, but, as a student pointed out, descriptive is SUPER organized so that the description overpowers the sequencing.  Very interesting.  Yes, the author has to be SUPER organized to get their point across when they are writing in the descriptive style.   Amazing learning!

We were ready now-ready for a bigger challenge.  At this point, we dug out our reading journals, we grabbed our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and we added to this a blank piece of construction paper!  Construction paper!  Yes, it was time for a construction paper challenge.  On the construction paper, students created two boxes.  At the top, they wrote, “Sequencing:  Chapter ___ Evidence.”  On the other side they wrote, “Descriptive:  Chapter ___ Evidence.”  Then I pointed them to chapter 9 and 10!  Their mission-discover which one was which and provide at least 4 pieces of evidence- it was amazing!  They dug in and searched through each chapter to find the evidence.  They used key terms and the facts columns to justify their selections.  If they got off the scent, it was easy to point them back.  In fact, I had a table of 4 where 3 were going in the wrong direction and one of my struggling students could justify and explain why to them!  Here are a few samples of the end product.

We also made a chart of our discoveries.  This chart included the sentences the students found and some of our own discoveries about how the lengths of paragraphs impacted the type of text it was as well! 

Even with all this learning, I was beginning to question myself-was I spending too much time on this, was it important enough to spend this time on, was there enough here to keep going?  Boy, did I discover what I was really teaching!  I’ll be posting again tomorrow, because I don’t want to get too close to Halloween because it involves a fun “readcraftivity” opportunity to try with a descriptive text!!!